English Medieval History

Discover all the foul facts about the Measly Middle Ages on audio, narrated by Terry Deary. Find out why chickens had their bottoms shaved, a genuine jester's joke and what ten-year-old treacle was used for.

Since ancient times, accounts of supernatural activity have mystified us. Ghost stories as we know them did not develop until the late 19th century, but the restless dead haunted the premodern imagination in many forms, as recorded in historical narratives, theological texts, and personal letters. The Penguin Book of the Undead teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath.

The Albigensian Crusade: The History and Legacy of the Catholic Campaign Against the Cathars in France examines the origins of Catharism, the conflicts with Catholicism, and the fighting that led to Cathars being stamped out across France.

The Republic of Genoa: The History of the Italian City that Became Influential across the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages examines the highs and lows of Genoa La Superba (“The Proud”), including its humble origins in the first century CE, its felicitous rise after the fall of the Roman Empire, its golden age as a mercantile power during the “Genoese Century,” and its demise at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797.

Violent extremist Sunni and Shiite Muslims are at odds about most things. One of the few points that they can agree upon in the midst of their war of mutual annihilation is that the Apocalypse is coming and that they are the soldiers of its harbinger and redeemer: the Mahdi. Across the Islamic world, the figure of the Mahdi has appeared with increasing prevalence in the last few decades.

In the early 1800s, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world. Harry played Wizard's Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Housed at the British Museum, they are among its most visited and beloved objects.

Medieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a lively historical survey that charts the evolution of women’s roles throughout the period and profiles eight individual women in depth.

Scotland is an old country with an ancient history. There is no doubt about that. Many traditions, words, symbols, and other cultural aspects we see as normal today originate from Scotland. Scotland's documented history started with the Roman Empire's entrance in the first century, when the province of Britannia broadened as far north as the Antonine Wall. With all of this history and more in the past few centuries, when things got really interesting, let’s take a look at some of the best-known, most important factors of Scotland’s history, and what we can learn from them.

Millions love the hit television show Vikings - but how many fans know that its main character, Ragnar, is based on an actual Viking king whose ambitious and terrifying exploits have been legend since the ninth century? The Legend of Ragnar Lothbrok presents fascinating new translations of ninth, 12th, and 13th-century writings - including sagas, poems, and historical accounts - that describe, in vivid detail, the adventures of Ragnar, his sons, and his formidable wives.

Becket: Warrior - 1159. Toulouse. Thomas of London, Chancellor of England, has spent a lifetime as a clerk, administrator, and ambassador. Now he must prove himself a warrior and leader of men, if his friend and master King Henry II of England is to achieve his ambition to rule all France. The fiery King and calculating Chancellor are as close as brothers, but many at court see Thomas as an upstart. Becket must fight on a political as well as military front. The city of Toulouse controls trade into Spain and the Mediterranean.

Ireland. AD 672. The body of a dead man has been found on a lonely mountain road and taken to the isolated abbey of Gleann Da Loch for a proper burial. The abbot quickly identifies him as Brehon Brocc, who had been travelling to the abbey on a secret mission with Princess Gelgeis and her steward. When news reaches Colgu, king of Muman, that his betrothed, Princess Gelgeis, has disappeared, Fidelma with her trusted companions, Eadulf and Enda, enter the hostile Kingdom of Laigin in search of the truth.

The crucial importance of education in China, a prized virtue instilled in the population among all classes by beloved teacher and philosopher Confucius in the 6th century BCE, generated an unprecedented and long-lived golden age of literature and art. It also gave rise to a cornucopia of transformative innovations and groundbreaking technology, particularly following the dawn of the Common Era.

A bloody revolt by a North African prince and a plot to seize control of Rome are the subjects of two short masterpieces of ancient history by the illustrious Roman chronicler, Sallust. He could not have chosen two more dramatic episodes in the long history of this city.

Europeans had believed in the existence of this Christian kingdom for hundreds of years, making Prester John a fascinating but difficult topic given that his story was entirely one of legend. Given that he was not a real figure, many modern histories either omit him or ignore his story and influence altogether, but as counterintuitive as it may seem, Prester John is important because for over 500 years people thought he was real. As a result, people took very real actions attempting to find them, and they had an impact on the world, as far back as the travels of Marco Polo.

One of the most fascinating elements of Norse cosmology is the fact that its end is foretold in crushing detail. This end of times will come about in a mighty battle called "Ragnarök", an event translated as either "the Fate of the Gods" or (in Richard Wagner's re-imagining) "the Twilight of the Gods." Ragnarök: The Origins and History of the Apocalypse in Norse Mythology looks at the story and the legendary Norse mythology behind it.

On October 21, 1600, two massive Japanese armies, totaling an estimated 200,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with swords, yari (spears), arrows, muskets, and cannons, faced off on a battlefield near the town of Sekigahara. A bitter fight to the death ensued, and the results would determine the course of Japanese history for the next 250 years. On the battlefield was the warlord Leyasu Tokugawa, a man desiring domain over the entire island of Japan, but standing in his way was Ishida Mitsunari, a warlord controlling vast swaths of western Japan.

Slavery was widespread all over Europe during the early Middle Ages and Scandinavians, as Stefan Brink illustrates in this book, became a major player in the northern slave trade. Using a wide variety of source materials, including archaeology, runes, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and not least etymological and semantic analyses of the terminology of slaves, Thraldom provides the most comprehensive survey of slavery in the Viking Age.

The Most Venerable Book is one of the five classics. For many centuries it was a central work for anyone wishing to work for the imperial administration, with its prestige stemming from the belief that it had been assembled by Confucius himself. The first emperor tried to have all copies destroyed because of its subversive implication that 'the Mandate of Heaven' could be withdrawn from rulers who failed their people. For similar reasons it was also banned by Mao. Extraordinarily, it has been revived by the Chinese government of the 2010s.

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusion whims and seeing them carried them out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. Whatever their background, these rulers show that dynastic politics made sure that a rightful heir always got on the throne - despite that heir's mental condition - and that power can destroy a mind worse than any mental illness.

The Byzantine Empire was the heir to two great cultures that cradled and nurtured European civilization: Greece and Rome. Byzantium was a strong, organized, highly effective, and adaptable civilization for most of its long history. It owed its success in no small part to its military, which, in contrast to the feudal armies of Western Europe and the tribally based forces of the Middle East, operated with a high level of discipline, strategic prowess, efficiency, and organization. The most famous of the foreign units was without question the Varangian Guard.